Lois
P. JonesLois P. Jones’ awards include the Lascaux Poetry Prize
in 2018, the Bristol Poetry Prize in 2017 and the Tiferet Poetry Prize
in 2012, with work shortlisted for The London Magazine (2018) and the
Bridport Prize in poetry in 2016 and 2017. Jones has work published or
forthcoming in anthologies including New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust (Vallentine Mitchell of London – 2019); The Poet’s Quest for God (Eyewear Publishing), and Wide Awake: Poetry of Los Angeles and Beyond (The Pacific Coast Poetry Series). Other publications include Narrative, American Poetry Journal, One, Tupelo Quarterly, The Warwick Review, Cider Press Review and Tinderbox Poetry Journal.
Jones’ first collection of poems, Night Ladder, one Glass Lyre Press’s
Editor’s Choice Award and listed for the Julie Suk Award. She
hosts KPFK’s Poets Café in Los Angeles, is the poetry editor of Kyoto
Journal and co-hosts the long running Moonday Poetry Series at the
Flintridge Bookstore.

Four Nights in the Misty Fjords

She was inside the whalebonecounting the looped ritualthat followed her below deck.She was the smell of crayfishand crab, cracking them open,tearing out their sweet meat.This is what she did when the shellssplit. She kept them until they driedinside like a gull’s white dung.She layered the hours with it –when everyone lay in their bunksand the stars were hammers on the sea.She could feel their weight – hearthe surrender of the old halibutbefore the hook found passage.Blackwater pulling on a line,pulling like the night, creakinglike a lie. And when she closed her eyesand her body sank downthat’s when he would appear, cinchin his hand, twisting the anchoruntil it snapped, watching her dropin the dark. The rope unravellingfrom the rust so swiftly, it burnedto touch. Nothing but nightfallat the river’s mouth and the slowmotion of salmon waiting to be caught.